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More News Tomorrow
A thrilling and richly drawn family drama about a daughter’s quest to understand her mother’s mysterious death.
On the morning of her seventieth birthday, Georgianna Grove receives an unexpected letter that calls her back to Missing Lake, Wisconsin, where her mother was murdered sixty-six years earlier. Georgie’s father had confessed to the murder the next morning and was carted off to a state penitentiary. Haunted by the night that took both her parents away and determined to unearth the truth, Georgie takes her reluctant family on what will become a dangerous canoe trip up the swollen Bone River to return to Missing Lake.
Acclaimed novelist Susan Richards Shreve captures the tenor of the times with clarity and elegance as Georgie untangles a web of bigotry and half- forgotten memories.
On the morning of her seventieth birthday, Georgianna Grove receives an unexpected letter that calls her back to Missing Lake, Wisconsin, where her mother was murdered sixty-six years earlier. Georgie’s father had confessed to the murder the next morning and was carted off to a state penitentiary. Haunted by the night that took both her parents away and determined to unearth the truth, Georgie takes her reluctant family on what will become a dangerous canoe trip up the swollen Bone River to return to Missing Lake.
Acclaimed novelist Susan Richards Shreve captures the tenor of the times with clarity and elegance as Georgie untangles a web of bigotry and half- forgotten memories.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published June 4, 2019
223 people are currently reading
2030 people want to read
About the author
Susan Richards Shreve
72 books85 followersAlso know as Susan Shreve. Received the following awards: Jenny Moore Award, George Washington University, 1978; Notable Book citation, American Library Association (ALA), 1979, for Family Secrets: Five Very Important Stories; Best Book for Young Adults citation, ALA, 1980, for The Masquerade; Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, National Council for Social Studies and the Children's Book Council joint committee, 1980, for Family Secrets: Five Very Important Stories; Guggenheim award in fiction, 1980; National Endowment for the Arts fiction award, 1982; Edgar Allan Poe Award, Mystery Writers of America, 1988, for Lucy Forever and Miss Rosetree, Shrinks; Woodrow Wilson fellowships, West Virginia Wesleyan, 1994, and Bates College, 1997; Lila Wallace Readers Digest Foundation grant.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews
July 8, 2019
I won this book in exchange for an honest review...
Sadly, I wasn’t very impressed with this book at all. It wasn’t bad enough for me to stop reading it, but I just felt like I didn’t get anything out of it, which isn’t a good feeling to have after finishing a book. Especially one that you had higher hopes for. The part where Oona was missing was the only part I really liked. I guess it was just a bit to boring for me. No spins, no plot twists, no unpredictability. Just kind of blah. The writing itself was not bad, which is why it got the two stars instead of one. It was more my personal preference that hindered my ability to enjoy this read. The idea behind the book was really clever, I thought, and fairly unique....I think the delivery was just a bit lacking. Thank you for the opportunity to give this book a try, though.
Sadly, I wasn’t very impressed with this book at all. It wasn’t bad enough for me to stop reading it, but I just felt like I didn’t get anything out of it, which isn’t a good feeling to have after finishing a book. Especially one that you had higher hopes for. The part where Oona was missing was the only part I really liked. I guess it was just a bit to boring for me. No spins, no plot twists, no unpredictability. Just kind of blah. The writing itself was not bad, which is why it got the two stars instead of one. It was more my personal preference that hindered my ability to enjoy this read. The idea behind the book was really clever, I thought, and fairly unique....I think the delivery was just a bit lacking. Thank you for the opportunity to give this book a try, though.
April 21, 2024
This sounded like a mystery.
A woman understood that her father had murdered her mother when she was 4 years old, and he confessed to the killing and now, 66 years later she has the opportunity to learn whether or not it was true. So, she heads back to where it all happened, with her family in tow to learn the truth.
Sounds like an interesting premise, yes? Well, that is about it.
The idea could have been good, but the telling was dull, boring, uninteresting, and well, yes, I skipped to the end. And even then…anticlimactic. Disappointing.
A woman understood that her father had murdered her mother when she was 4 years old, and he confessed to the killing and now, 66 years later she has the opportunity to learn whether or not it was true. So, she heads back to where it all happened, with her family in tow to learn the truth.
Sounds like an interesting premise, yes? Well, that is about it.
The idea could have been good, but the telling was dull, boring, uninteresting, and well, yes, I skipped to the end. And even then…anticlimactic. Disappointing.
July 30, 2019
Weird and anticlimactic
July 2, 2019
Can’t even begin to rant about how awful this was
August 27, 2019
Imagine you secretly video your neighbors celebrating their grandmothers 70th birthday. Her three children and their children sitting around the table reminiscing. I'm sure they had a good time but it's not much fun for the rest of us.
That's what this book felt like. I'm not interested in my neighbors family drama.
The writing was ok but it was a dull story.
No characters were that interesting.
Plus Georgianna's relationship with her 13 year old grandson was weird.
That's what this book felt like. I'm not interested in my neighbors family drama.
The writing was ok but it was a dull story.
No characters were that interesting.
Plus Georgianna's relationship with her 13 year old grandson was weird.
June 28, 2019
A family digs into an unsolved murder 67 years later, unearthing more than they/we imagined (Washington, DC 2008 back to 1941 northern Wisconsin): Imagination dominates More News Tomorrow, Susan Richards Shreve’s cunning fifteenth novel. Dropping seductive literary breadcrumbs bit by bit, the reader is drawn into an elusive, gothic-like tale larger than what we imagined it to be: a murder mystery.
Imaginative is one way to describe the captivating, unconventional life and career of the daring main character, Georgianna Grove. A cultural anthropology professor noted for studying the Baos tribe of Botswana, her doctoral thesis examined what it means to “sacrifice individual needs in order to belong to a larger whole.” A feisty woman who walks the talk, she imagined and created a home that honored her premise “to make a home, you need a tribe.”
After her husband was killed in Vietnam, Georgie purchased the defunct Home for the Incurables in Washington, DC believing “if we were to gather people together who do not belong to each other, wouldn’t that be an act of hope”? A young widow with two children and one on the way – Nicholas, Rosie, Venus – she raised them along with “89 strangers since 1968.” Shreve reinvents this historical home, which reinvented itself multiple times over a century.
Just as the anthropologist’s aim is to “peel away the layers of the past,” Georgie’s story – the plot – is aimed at uncovering the truth about what really happened in 1941 when her mother Josie was murdered in a remote boy’s camp in the wilds of northern Wisconsin. Run by her father William, he confessed to the crime, died in prison four years later.
As that eerie story dramatically unfolds, another gradually peels away hidden layers from a different past – racial, anti-Semitic, and immigrant animus – we can imagine triggered violence in the forties, and has had lasting influences on Georgie and her “original” family.
Parental impact on their children’s lives endures and stirs. As Georgie goes searching for answers, we see how the mystery of her parents has played out on her life, and will play out on the lives of her three adult children and their three children, Thomas, Jesse, Oona.
The novel opens with two plot-driving letters. One Georgie received after her father’s death in 1945, planting seeds of hope and imagination, writing “what you’ve been told is not the whole story. There will be more news tomorrow.” The second letter arrives on Georgie’s 70th birthday, when the novel opens, inviting her to the camp, raising hopes tomorrow has finally come.
Thomas, Georgie’s precocious and imaginative thirteen-year-old grandson, shares center stage with this matriarch. He’s her sidekick, her soul mate, her staunchest defender. He’s been living with Georgie and his mother, Rosie, the older of Georgie’s two daughters, for the past two years. Venus, her Tarot-reading younger daughter, is a minor character, though her offbeat choice of fortune-telling reinforces the imagination theme. It’s also consistent with the strangeness of Georgie’s “very strange” plan to relive the past to get to the bottom of a double tragedy that’s resurfaced decades later.
Thomas is the one who’ll grab your heart and squeeze it. Wise beyond his years, gifted and sensitive, most notably depicted in four, interspersed chapters titled The Memoirs of Thomas Davis (for publication).
Rosie thinks the summer assignment is ridiculous since Thomas is still at an age when “nothing has happened.” Georgie disagrees, saying “childhood has happened.”
Thomas’ memoirs serve two purposes – one for him and one for us. He hopes Georgie’s planned trip, dubbed “Planned Coincidences,” will be the vehicle for telling a tall tale his classmates will envy, ending the bullying that started after he lost his father and developed a stutter. Oh, how we ache for this sweet boy, abandoned by death and then because he’s different. Thomas is so smart, speaks like an adult, but he doesn’t want to go to school anymore. Injustice, the cruelty of childhood bullying, like all the subtle prose, sends powerful messages.
Georgie may be courageous, but the discovery journey she’s concocted, including dragging most of her family along, is crazy. A heroine, but this chilling “reenactment” trip will put her loved ones at risk.
Everyone is supposed to arrive at the notorious camp on the exact month and day Georgie lost her parents. We begin to sense history repeating itself, starting with vulnerable ages. Georgie lost her parents at four; her son Nicholas lost his father at four. In 2008, it might be his four-year-old daughter Oona’s turn. Something sinister is lurking in the ghostly Wisconsin chapters.
Coincidences build suspensefully as Georgie insists her crew replicate the same mode of transport William, Josie, and she took, paddling up the mighty Bone River to arrive at the camp by canoe. Yet all are novice canoeists, at best. They’re to be met by 77-year-old Roosevelt, who wrote the invitational letter that also said he’s the only person alive who was at the camp in ‘41, opening Pandora’s box.
Thomas’ intermittent memoirs summarize and illuminate what we’ve been reading several chapters earlier. We’re glad to have them to confirm some details intentionally not spelled out. But when we reach the last pages of his memoirs – the ending – meant to clarify the murder, this time we’re not so sure we have all the news we need. Thomas’ conclusion adheres to Georgie’s: “Imagination is the truth.” The reader must decide whether to trust that, or feel cleverly deceived by this crafty novel.
Nicholas is the character whose voice sets the edgy, atmospheric, suspicious tone versus Georgie’s confidence and Thomas’ trust. He speaks for the rest of the family who unwillingly went on the trip. His antsy, disinterested fifteen-year-old son Jesse is present but not his wife, who has a legitimate reason not to be there as she’s acting in Othello at the Folger Theatre, a DC landmark dedicated to all things Shakespeare, dropping more subtle clues.
Nicholas also has a justifiable excuse for not going as he’s being taken away from his campaign duties working for presidential candidate Barack Obama, again tinging the prose with hope, only to bump up against our racial history. Alarm bells keep sounding off about history repeating itself.
While there’s not much more news I can give you without spoiling the mystery, a few other things to consider:
Josie’s parents were anti-Semitic. So was the camp in ‘41 with its sign declaring “No dogs. No Jews.”
Note William was Jewish. He left his small, tight-knit village in Lithuania (again, community matters) when Europe was a hotbed of anti-Semitism, coming to America to live with his uncle Irving in Boston. Soon after, he learned his mother died. Again, a profound family loss, this time for a lonely immigrant known to have a temper, though apparently softened by a mother-figure: Irving’s beautiful black cook, Clementine, Roosevelt’s mother. She too then was at Camp Minnie Ha Ha in 1941.
Clementine is wonderfully depicted non-stereotypically: an educated black woman who attended Spelman College. The author, like Georgie, is highly-educated: professor of creative writing at George Mason University outside of DC, founder of its MFA program (see https://susanshreve.com/bio for more). Might three educated women be suggesting that a well-informed citizenry could help overcome or tone down long-held prejudices borne out of a lack of understanding? Will we ever feel connected to one universal tribe?
“Georgie has a way of making everything possible,” says Thomas. So maybe you too will believe in the novel’s imagined truth.
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
Imaginative is one way to describe the captivating, unconventional life and career of the daring main character, Georgianna Grove. A cultural anthropology professor noted for studying the Baos tribe of Botswana, her doctoral thesis examined what it means to “sacrifice individual needs in order to belong to a larger whole.” A feisty woman who walks the talk, she imagined and created a home that honored her premise “to make a home, you need a tribe.”
After her husband was killed in Vietnam, Georgie purchased the defunct Home for the Incurables in Washington, DC believing “if we were to gather people together who do not belong to each other, wouldn’t that be an act of hope”? A young widow with two children and one on the way – Nicholas, Rosie, Venus – she raised them along with “89 strangers since 1968.” Shreve reinvents this historical home, which reinvented itself multiple times over a century.
Just as the anthropologist’s aim is to “peel away the layers of the past,” Georgie’s story – the plot – is aimed at uncovering the truth about what really happened in 1941 when her mother Josie was murdered in a remote boy’s camp in the wilds of northern Wisconsin. Run by her father William, he confessed to the crime, died in prison four years later.
As that eerie story dramatically unfolds, another gradually peels away hidden layers from a different past – racial, anti-Semitic, and immigrant animus – we can imagine triggered violence in the forties, and has had lasting influences on Georgie and her “original” family.
Parental impact on their children’s lives endures and stirs. As Georgie goes searching for answers, we see how the mystery of her parents has played out on her life, and will play out on the lives of her three adult children and their three children, Thomas, Jesse, Oona.
The novel opens with two plot-driving letters. One Georgie received after her father’s death in 1945, planting seeds of hope and imagination, writing “what you’ve been told is not the whole story. There will be more news tomorrow.” The second letter arrives on Georgie’s 70th birthday, when the novel opens, inviting her to the camp, raising hopes tomorrow has finally come.
Thomas, Georgie’s precocious and imaginative thirteen-year-old grandson, shares center stage with this matriarch. He’s her sidekick, her soul mate, her staunchest defender. He’s been living with Georgie and his mother, Rosie, the older of Georgie’s two daughters, for the past two years. Venus, her Tarot-reading younger daughter, is a minor character, though her offbeat choice of fortune-telling reinforces the imagination theme. It’s also consistent with the strangeness of Georgie’s “very strange” plan to relive the past to get to the bottom of a double tragedy that’s resurfaced decades later.
Thomas is the one who’ll grab your heart and squeeze it. Wise beyond his years, gifted and sensitive, most notably depicted in four, interspersed chapters titled The Memoirs of Thomas Davis (for publication).
Rosie thinks the summer assignment is ridiculous since Thomas is still at an age when “nothing has happened.” Georgie disagrees, saying “childhood has happened.”
Thomas’ memoirs serve two purposes – one for him and one for us. He hopes Georgie’s planned trip, dubbed “Planned Coincidences,” will be the vehicle for telling a tall tale his classmates will envy, ending the bullying that started after he lost his father and developed a stutter. Oh, how we ache for this sweet boy, abandoned by death and then because he’s different. Thomas is so smart, speaks like an adult, but he doesn’t want to go to school anymore. Injustice, the cruelty of childhood bullying, like all the subtle prose, sends powerful messages.
Georgie may be courageous, but the discovery journey she’s concocted, including dragging most of her family along, is crazy. A heroine, but this chilling “reenactment” trip will put her loved ones at risk.
Everyone is supposed to arrive at the notorious camp on the exact month and day Georgie lost her parents. We begin to sense history repeating itself, starting with vulnerable ages. Georgie lost her parents at four; her son Nicholas lost his father at four. In 2008, it might be his four-year-old daughter Oona’s turn. Something sinister is lurking in the ghostly Wisconsin chapters.
Coincidences build suspensefully as Georgie insists her crew replicate the same mode of transport William, Josie, and she took, paddling up the mighty Bone River to arrive at the camp by canoe. Yet all are novice canoeists, at best. They’re to be met by 77-year-old Roosevelt, who wrote the invitational letter that also said he’s the only person alive who was at the camp in ‘41, opening Pandora’s box.
Thomas’ intermittent memoirs summarize and illuminate what we’ve been reading several chapters earlier. We’re glad to have them to confirm some details intentionally not spelled out. But when we reach the last pages of his memoirs – the ending – meant to clarify the murder, this time we’re not so sure we have all the news we need. Thomas’ conclusion adheres to Georgie’s: “Imagination is the truth.” The reader must decide whether to trust that, or feel cleverly deceived by this crafty novel.
Nicholas is the character whose voice sets the edgy, atmospheric, suspicious tone versus Georgie’s confidence and Thomas’ trust. He speaks for the rest of the family who unwillingly went on the trip. His antsy, disinterested fifteen-year-old son Jesse is present but not his wife, who has a legitimate reason not to be there as she’s acting in Othello at the Folger Theatre, a DC landmark dedicated to all things Shakespeare, dropping more subtle clues.
Nicholas also has a justifiable excuse for not going as he’s being taken away from his campaign duties working for presidential candidate Barack Obama, again tinging the prose with hope, only to bump up against our racial history. Alarm bells keep sounding off about history repeating itself.
While there’s not much more news I can give you without spoiling the mystery, a few other things to consider:
Josie’s parents were anti-Semitic. So was the camp in ‘41 with its sign declaring “No dogs. No Jews.”
Note William was Jewish. He left his small, tight-knit village in Lithuania (again, community matters) when Europe was a hotbed of anti-Semitism, coming to America to live with his uncle Irving in Boston. Soon after, he learned his mother died. Again, a profound family loss, this time for a lonely immigrant known to have a temper, though apparently softened by a mother-figure: Irving’s beautiful black cook, Clementine, Roosevelt’s mother. She too then was at Camp Minnie Ha Ha in 1941.
Clementine is wonderfully depicted non-stereotypically: an educated black woman who attended Spelman College. The author, like Georgie, is highly-educated: professor of creative writing at George Mason University outside of DC, founder of its MFA program (see https://susanshreve.com/bio for more). Might three educated women be suggesting that a well-informed citizenry could help overcome or tone down long-held prejudices borne out of a lack of understanding? Will we ever feel connected to one universal tribe?
“Georgie has a way of making everything possible,” says Thomas. So maybe you too will believe in the novel’s imagined truth.
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
November 17, 2019
Ugh. I'm mad at myself that I bothered to finish this, but at least it wasn't too much time at 263 pages. Uninterestingly written and boring drivel without a believable character, line of dialogue, or scene in it.
July 7, 2019
All in all a nothing story. No characters were that interesting. Story had potential but didn’t deliver anything worth remembering or discussing.
August 27, 2019
Gentle, and carefully observed, but muted and slighter than it promises... with a milquetoast, anodyne title that should’ve tipped me off to the whole affair.
April 28, 2019
Georgianna has never played by other people's rules. She survived her mother's murder and her father's prison sentence at an early age and then survived her husband's passing leaving her with a handful of young children. As she turns 70 and she receives a letter from someone who was there when her mother was found, she decides a road trip is in order. She gathers up her ragtag family and plans a crazy trip by canoe back to the scene of her mother's murder at a boys camp in remote Wisconsin. The expedition includes her grown children and grandchildren who oddly enough, mimic the ages of the original trip goers. Can she find closure and the answers she needs before her family bolts or she puts them in a dangerous situation? Still and quiet as a lake at dawn, this story should be savored slowly and with great purpose. I loved Georgie's oddball look at life and her wise but quirky grandson Thomas and you will too. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.
September 22, 2019
Hmmm.
The prose was certainly eloquent, obviously sentences built by a skilled writer. However, they seemed pinned on a plot and premise only partially formed. The voice of the young Thomas, and the older, black Roosevelt felt inauthentic at best.
The climax wasn't. And its foreshadowing so heavy handed, the end was predictable from the introduction of the character the reveal involved. Too, the obsessive homosexual crush in the 1940s sequences felt gratuitous; it certainly was never explored nor explained.
In short, incongruities, inconsistencies, anachronistic reactions and behaviors, all amounted --- for me --- in something which felt like a really gifted artist had completed a paint by numbers canvas --- there were, here and there, strokes of real artistry, but the whole amounted to far less than one had expected given the author's reputation and history.
The prose was certainly eloquent, obviously sentences built by a skilled writer. However, they seemed pinned on a plot and premise only partially formed. The voice of the young Thomas, and the older, black Roosevelt felt inauthentic at best.
The climax wasn't. And its foreshadowing so heavy handed, the end was predictable from the introduction of the character the reveal involved. Too, the obsessive homosexual crush in the 1940s sequences felt gratuitous; it certainly was never explored nor explained.
In short, incongruities, inconsistencies, anachronistic reactions and behaviors, all amounted --- for me --- in something which felt like a really gifted artist had completed a paint by numbers canvas --- there were, here and there, strokes of real artistry, but the whole amounted to far less than one had expected given the author's reputation and history.
March 22, 2019
More News Tomorrow is a fast vacation read. Ms. Shreve provides a bit of mystery, some history, and a look at family dynamics. It seemed as if she were studiously working to cover all her PC bases:
Racial discrimination, WWII/anti-semitism, women's roles, white male privilege, and a black contender for the presidency. I still enjoyed the book and will find more of her writing.
Racial discrimination, WWII/anti-semitism, women's roles, white male privilege, and a black contender for the presidency. I still enjoyed the book and will find more of her writing.
August 6, 2019
Interesting story but very hard to keep all of the characters straight. Not much lead in as to who they were and their relationships. If the children had called Georgie “Mom”, it might have helped.
July 16, 2019
I wanted to like this book but I found it to be laborious. The plot lacked interest.
November 28, 2019
This storyline had potential, but it fell far short of expectations. This was my first Susan Richards Shreve novel and probably the last. Boring. A big dud.
December 10, 2019
Disappointed
June 10, 2019
Somewhat atmospheric but mostly event driven, this novel held my attention from beginning to end. It’s a good escapist read, would make a great airplane read. I kept turning pages and finished it in two days.
March 30, 2021
A very solid summer story, an enjoyable read but without any deep insight into life, hence the 3*
March 20, 2021
This book—beautiful cover—was both better and not as good as I’d hoped. I loved the people, so vital, so human, and I loved the time shift back and forth. Somehow it both gripped and disappointed, the old murder mystery and the new kidnapping mystery in the very same spot at the campsite on the river, the way life does sometimes and never does.
February 1, 2020
Tedious. I wanted to know what happened so paged thru to find out. Simply tedious.
January 29, 2023
Less a mystery than a somewhat dull family drama that leads nowhere. How can a book about an unsolved family murder from decades ago, a kidnapped child, and a perilous trip down a river be this boring and unlikely? Read and find out! I’m giving it a bonus star because I liked the bits about DC.
July 22, 2019
The novel opens with the arrival of a letter on the morning of Georgia Grove’s 70th birthday, which rockets her back 66 years to the day her mother was murdered on a canoe trip in Wisconsin. Her father had confessed to the crime and lived out his days in the state penitentiary, but there are mysteries and inconsistencies surrounding the confession and death that have both haunted Georgie and broken up her family.
On the lead up to Obama’s election, a time of national optimism about race and prejudice, Georgie decides to return to the scene of her parents’ crime on Bone River, determined to uncover the truth. The book toggles between two time periods, weaving in aspects of race, loss and the damage of family secrets between 1941, the year of her mother’s murder and 2008 when the country is about to elect a black man to the White House.
On the lead up to Obama’s election, a time of national optimism about race and prejudice, Georgie decides to return to the scene of her parents’ crime on Bone River, determined to uncover the truth. The book toggles between two time periods, weaving in aspects of race, loss and the damage of family secrets between 1941, the year of her mother’s murder and 2008 when the country is about to elect a black man to the White House.
July 24, 2019
Nicely done psychological mystery, distinctive setting. Not any kind of typical who-done-it, more a look at trauma, family, patterns, and time. Will look for another Shreve novel now.
January 11, 2020
Strange book. What as point?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2020
Three stars is generous as this is a disappointing book. It is full of good writing and has a vivid sense of place, but the plot is predictable. In the acknowledgments at the end of the book Shreve mentions she had the good fortune to have two sessions at Yaddo, it is unfortunate her fellow Yaddo writers didn't provide her with some quality feedback.
Read
January 4, 2020Didn't finish.
July 21, 2019
Okay read, nothing particularly special. Her mom is murdered by her dad? when she's 4 as they canoe to camp. 60 years later she returns with her family hoping to discover if her father was the murderer and why he might have confessed to a murder he didn't commit.
April 20, 2021
This just didn't do if for me. There was much promise, and I love the fact that Shreve used a 70-year-old lead character. But there were too many people flitting around this book! It became exceedingly difficult to keep track of them all: Georgie, Thomas, Nicolas, Venus, Rosie, Oona, Jessie, William, James, Josie, Clem, Roosevelt--help! How does one ever remember which one is which, especially when there are so many scenes of so many people sitting around talking, until it's like: Okay, who is Nicolas again? James?
Sadly, the story of a 67-year-old murder isn't thick enough to propel the book forward, and too many parts are too unrealistic (would a father really bring his 4-year-old daughter on a flimsily-researched canoe trip, just because his mother wants him to? And after someone kidnaps that same daughter and she's returned unharmed, would no one seriously contact the authorities? Would people just think, oh, that happened and it's over now, la, de, da?).
So yeah, maybe this book would be good for a quick beach read, but really, I didn't care much for any of the characters, though I did finish it, so that's something.
It's not a terrible book, and I'm not sorry that I read it. It's just not something I'd ever pick up again.
Sadly, the story of a 67-year-old murder isn't thick enough to propel the book forward, and too many parts are too unrealistic (would a father really bring his 4-year-old daughter on a flimsily-researched canoe trip, just because his mother wants him to? And after someone kidnaps that same daughter and she's returned unharmed, would no one seriously contact the authorities? Would people just think, oh, that happened and it's over now, la, de, da?).
So yeah, maybe this book would be good for a quick beach read, but really, I didn't care much for any of the characters, though I did finish it, so that's something.
It's not a terrible book, and I'm not sorry that I read it. It's just not something I'd ever pick up again.
April 28, 2019
This story of a woman finding answers to a lifelong question approached the idea in a unique manner. When 70 year old Georgianna decides to return to the Wisconsin camp where her life changed forever, and take along her family, only one child was looking forward to the trip.
The book explores many issues including racism, loss, grief, and parent-child relationships. I liked the book but didn't feel there was much tension in it, and the modern day mystery was not resolved - just accepted without any repercussions.
The murder from the past was also solved for Georgie, and I hope the author intended to show some resolution in the way she presented it. I liked the way that the author developed the story but found some of the situations unrealistic, and the characters a a little too stereotypical. One family relationship was not revealed until too near the end and it seemed contrived to me. That child had issues which were glossed over and I felt could have been incorporated into the story better.
I want to thank Bookbrowse and W.W.Norton for an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review
The book explores many issues including racism, loss, grief, and parent-child relationships. I liked the book but didn't feel there was much tension in it, and the modern day mystery was not resolved - just accepted without any repercussions.
The murder from the past was also solved for Georgie, and I hope the author intended to show some resolution in the way she presented it. I liked the way that the author developed the story but found some of the situations unrealistic, and the characters a a little too stereotypical. One family relationship was not revealed until too near the end and it seemed contrived to me. That child had issues which were glossed over and I felt could have been incorporated into the story better.
I want to thank Bookbrowse and W.W.Norton for an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review
Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews